I find done was that at some Distance of time several Attempts and Proceedings pass'd in order to it and Extracted out of Dr. Burnet at length the Work was finish'd by divers Committees successively but those neither of the Convocation nor named by the Convocation Indeed Cranmer was the principal Person and who else were imployed therein may be seen in Dr. Burnet's 2d Part p. 196 197. But before it received the Royal Confirmation the King died and the Work fell with him says my Author As to the second I do not observe any Notice was taken of it either by the Bishops then in Power or by the Parliament And I conjecture the Reason to be for that it was known full well to the Reformers that the Generality of the Clergy were at that time Papists in See Dr. Burnet Part 2. p. 96. their Hearts which hindred the Church of many Powers and Privileges that otherwise might have been granted to her And however many of them for that time complied yet in Q. Mary's Days when Popery came to be resettled by Parliament all of them save 177 if we may believe See his Journal pag. 23. Part 2. p. 50. Sir Simon D' Ewes turned about again or became I apists As to the third It was resolved saith Dr. Burnet that many Bishops and Divines should be sent the same who afterwards compiled the Liturgy saith Dr. Heylin were sent to Windsor to labour in the Matter of the Communion-Service but that required so much Consideration that they would not enter into it during a Session of Parliament However it was finish'd and publish'd with the King's Proclamation March 8 1547 8 as Dr. Heylin tells us And for the fourth what Answer was given to it doth not appear Thus the Reverend Doctor However most certain it is that neither were these Bishops and Divines named by the lower House of Convocation but by the King and Council as will by and by appear nor the Alterations by them made ever brought before that House What further Dr. Burnet records done by this Convocation upon the Bishops sending down to the lower House a Declaration concerning the Sacrament to be received in both kinds and the Marriage of the Clergy to the former of which all consented and to the latter most I need not report What I have faithfully thus represented from him is the Sum of that Account which he says is all he could recover of that Convocation Pag. 50. And what shall the Man do that comes after him Despairing therefore of more touching this Convocation we will go on with Fox and others in the Proceedings of the Reformation made without them Not only the Communion was enjoyned by Act of Parliament to be ministred in both kinds to which it may be said the Convocation consented but by the same Parliament solitary Communion of the Priest or private Masses were put down of which that we find the Convocation had never been consulted and to which that lower House for many Reasons would never have consented and the Curates required at least one Day before the Communion to exhort all Persons that should be present to prepare themselves for receiving Fifthly After this most godly Consent of the Parliament continues my Author making no mention of a Convocation for that now was broke up with the Parliament The King being no less desirous to have Fox p. 1183. the Form of the Administration of the Sacrament truly reduced to the right Rule of the Scripture and first Use of the Primitive Church than he was to establish the same by his own Regal Laws appointed certain of the most grave and learned Bishops and others of his Realm to assemble together at his Castle at Windsor and there to argue and intreat upon this Matter and conclude upon and set forth one perfect and uniform Order according to the Rule and Use aforesaid Here was made the then new English uniform Order of the Communion Sixthly In the mean while that these learned Persons were thus occupied about their Conferences the Lord Protector and the rest of the King's Council farther remembring that the time of the Year approaching wherein were practised many superstitious Abuses and blasphemous Ceremonies against the Glory of God and Truth of his Word and determining the utter abolishing thereof directed their Letters unto the Godly and Reverend Father Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury requiring him that upon the Receipt thereof he should will every Bishop within his Province forthwith to give in Charge to all the Curates of their Diocesses that neither Candles should be any more born upon Candlemas-day neither yet Ashes used in Lent nor Palms upon Palm-Sunday which was done accordingly And one of the Letters may be seen in my Author expresly saying All this was done by my Lord Protector 's Grace with the Advice of other the King's Majesty's most honourable Council dated Jan. 28 1547 8 at which time the King had reigned one Year compleat Seventhly Contention and Strife arising amongst the common People in divers Places of the Realm about Images what of these had been idolatrously abused and what not and consequently what should be pulled down and destroyed what left the Lords of the Council by one Advice thinking it best of good Experience for the avoiding all Discord and Tumult that all manner of Images should be clean taken out of Churches and none suffered to remain did thereupon again write their Letters unto the Archbishop of Canterbury to that Effect The Copy of the Letters bearing Date Feb. 11 1547 8 with Boner's Letters in Obedience to the Archbishop's Mandate thereupon may be seen at large in Fox Eighthly By this time the uniform Order for the Communion in English being finished Letters missive from the Council are issued forth to the Bishops of the Realm concerning the Communion to be administred according to the Tenour of the said Book Which Letters also may be read in the same Author p. 1184. bearing Date at Westminster March 13 1548. Ninthly Notwithstanding all these Orders to proceed through the perverse Obstinacy and dissembling Frowardness of many of the Priests who therefore never consented hereto in Convocation there arising a marvellous Schism and Variety of Fashions in celebrating the Common Service and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church the King's Council having good Intelligence hereof did by their prudent Advices again appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury with certain of the best learned and discreet Bishops and other learned Men to draw and make one convenient and meet Order Rite and Fashion of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacrament to be had and used within the Realm which was accordingly done and the Book which was the first of the two in his Reign was by the King exhibited to the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament about Nov. 4 1548. in the second Year of his Reign in which Parliament it pass'd with the Assent
to imitate §. 24. my Saviour and answer one captious Question with another 1st He asks Whether I will allow them whom I grant to be in Possession of the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation to keep Possession of it to teach explain and confirm it to their People And I will ask him Whether he never saw certain Royal Injunctions assigning fit Subjects for Sermons Some in Queen Elizabeth's Time and others since ordinarily transmitted to the Clergy by the Primate of the Kingdom that Preachers shall in their Sermons purely and sincerely declare unto their Hearers the Word of God and in the same exhort them to good Works to Works of Faith as Mercy and Charity that they shall forbear difficult and controversial Points Now although this of the Trinity be not that I remember mentioned yet I am sure there is the same Reason of it as of those that are And by his Favour I will ask him further whether it be not fit to obey such Injunctions or whether the Doctrine of the Trinity be not as difficult and remote from the common Peoples Understanding as is the Doctrine of Predestination and God's Decrees Notwithstanding this I yield In the Name of God let Ministers at due Season as on Trinity-Sunday and the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord preach to their People as they judg it most edifying the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation only let them do it plainly easily purely and sincerely according to Scripture and not with Innovations of their own His 2d Particular I expected would have been a Question also as he promised but he had either forgot his Promise or changed his Mind and so he puts the Case categorically thus I hope says Mr. Dean he that is the melancholy Stander-by does not propose this Negative Belief as he calls it as a Term of Communion that though we know them to deny the Trinity and Incarnation yet if they will agree not publickly to oppose and contradict this Faith we shall receive them to our Communion Now though he has not proposed this in form of a Question yet I will answer it with a very short one Why not At least as far forth as we know that is as they profess they can in Conscience join with us Nay has not Mr. Dean done it or would he not in the Case I shall now put namely Suppose him or me to be in the Pulpit beginning our Prayer before Sermon either as some do with the Collect Prevent us O Lord c. or with some Form or Conceptions of our own in which notwithstanding is nothing of Controversy intermix'd and to subjoin to our own Prayer that of our Lord's Suppose in like manner after Sermon we should use either that Collect Grant we beseech thee c. or some Prayer of our own and then give the Blessing to the whole Congregation promiscuously Admit now that in the Beginning of our very first Prayer we should have seen a Person whom we know to be a good Liver and professing the common Christianity in other Points but so unhappy as that he cannot be convinced of the Doctrine of three Persons in the Godhead as it is ordinarily taught or of the Incarnation of the second Person though he does from his Heart believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and hold all other the Articles of the Apostles Creed would or should either Mr. Dean or I in such case stop as soon as we saw that Person in the Congregation and bid him go out refusing he should join with us in those Prayers or receive his Share in that Blessing to both which he heartily says Amen that is Shall I not admit him to Communion as far as I know he does consent and desire to communicate with me and other Orthodox Christian People I know the Story of St. John the Evangelist and Cerinthus but Cerinthus was anotherguise Heretick than such Person as in the Character supposed I might animadvert as I pass that in pag. 27. Mr. Dean imputes sundry Points very iniquitously stated to the Socinians which yet they hold not as he states them I am not concerned to defend the Socinian Errors but as I love Truth and Peace I cannot forbear observing that he here wrongs them First as to what he speaks of the Object of Christian Worship if he as some in the World had had personal dealing with the Generality of his Parishioners as to Matters of Conscience he would say that the Ignorance of many Church-People and so the Errors of their Conceptions both touching God and touching the three Persons in the Godhead much more alter as to them the Object of the Christian Worship than do the Errors of the Socinians Again whereas he says the Socinians deny that the Son of God offered himself a Sacrifice to expiate our Sins I do so far depend upon my Memory as to avow they affirm our Lord Jesus to have been Victimam verè expiatoriam a Sacrifice truly expiatory they are the Words of the Author of the short Exposition of the Apostles Creed whether Slicktingius as I rather think or Crellius I cannot now tell having not seen my Book divers Years Nor do they deny the Love of God to Mankind in giving his only Son to be our Prophet and Saviour and Redeemer too nor his Intercession as their High Priest in virtue of his Blood shed as an Atonement for our Sins They differ from us perhaps in explaining the Nature of Expiation and Satisfaction but both an Expiation and a Satisfaction they allow Some Men write against them without understanding them But I forbear further intermeddling in these kinds of Injuries though to use Mr. Dean's Words it were easy to enlarge on this Argument I am not writing a Defence Pag. 28. of the Socinians only I am vindicating a peaceable Design in a Man that is none but loves Godliness Vertue and good Works where-ever he meets with them and who may chance sooner to perswade many Socinians to be silent by making it apparent he would not wrong them however odious others make them by unjust Charges than will those be able who try their Skill and strain their Veracity in fierce and haughty Disputes against them Men may have Wit enough if they have Justice done them to understand when it is fit to be quiet who will scarce sit down silent under publick Calumnies In the next Place Mr. Dean falls upon me for saying very much is done §. 25. namely for present Union by the late Act in Favour of Dissenters and taxes me here again according to his wonted Civility with pretending to give Account of Acts of Parliament as I do of other Books without seeing them A strange kind of Incredulity touching my Reading has possess'd this Gentleman Must I not be believed to have read Books except I produce Witnesses that heard or saw me read them I can produce Witnesses now in London where I bought this
of the said Lords and Commons But that it ever came before the Convocation cannot be proved When even eight Bishops in the House of Lords protested against it no one can believe that it would then have pass'd a Convocation and therefore no doubt it was never brought before them And thus proceeded the two first Years of King Edward the Sixth his Reformation as far as I can collect from my afore-mentioned Authors which two Years broke the Ice and made way for perfecter Work For by these Proceedings the Eyes of the Clergy no less than of the People who had both need enough began to be opened many of both sorts got a Taste of the Truth and took a Relish of the Reformation which by the Vigilance of the Government and indefatigable Diligence of the Reformers but chiefly by the prevailing and victorious Power of the Truth and the Influence of God's Spirit daily grew and advanced insomuch that a happy Forwardness towards a Settlement presented it self in the succeeding Part of this Reign But I may truly say Had not the Reformers taken Time by the Forelock and they not begun with the Dawn of the Day Had the King Council and the immortal Archbishop staid for such a Convocation which would have approved their Reformation in all likelihood we had had little or as I affirmed no Reformation at all in King Edward's and God only knows whether in the second following Reign For how the next of all might have strengthned Popery as Bones broke and once well knit again are they say the stronger in that Part we are not able to guess Sure it is could the Body of the Clergy in the Beginning have crushed the Designs of the Reformation they would have done it and by many sad Instances shewed their good Will Wherefore as to the later Years of King Edward and the Corrections and Additions made to the Liturgy near towards the End of his Reign I am not concern'd to speak Only ex abundanti I will Part 2. p. 169. add it appears by Dr. Burnet the making these was the Work of the Reformers not of the Convocation And it is supposed saith Dr. Heylin Hist Reform Anno 1552. pag. 126. the Convocation durst not canvass or alter what was before settled by the King's Authority and Act of Parliament Indeed all Men know that ever since the Submission of the Clergy in Henry the VIIIth's Time the Convocation hath been cut off from meddling with the State of Religion except as they are authorized by the King And had there been any such Authority given no doubt we should have found the Footsteps thereof I do not think it needful to speak more largely on this Point What I have said will sufficiently evince I did not speak without Book in what I hinted If any one else use to do so let him look to it After this Endeavour to expose my Ignorance Mr. Dean intimates his §. 27. Regret that I had not made my compassionate Suit in a severer Age than this the Reign of our merciful and gracious Princes for which Kindness of his I only return my Prayers that he may never feel the Severity of such Hands into which he could be content others should have faln And then he proceeds to tell the World I conclude with a heavy Charge upon himself and Dr. Wallis a greater Person would have said Dr. Wallis and himself that they have receded from the Doctrine taught even in our own Church about the Holy Trinity The whole of this is not true I never charged Dr. Wallis with receding from the Doctrine taught in our Church but rather expresly alledging his Words We mean by Persons in divinis no more but somewhat analogous to Persons I said this has been ever held by all learned Trinitarians All I mentioned which troubled me as to the Doctor 's explaining of the Trinity was an indecent Expression of which I have no mind to speak more But as to Dr. Sherlock I did produce not broken Passages as Mr. Dean stiles them but his intire Definition or Description of a Person in divinis which he gives in his Vindication of the Trinity and as I have said the Sum of his Hypothesis in his very own Words which I read in and transcribed from his Book And I do now expresly avow though I did not then do it so directly that he has receded herein from the Doctrine formerly taught not only in our Church but in the whole Christian World in this Point And I think I have already made it out as far as is consistent with the Brevity I here design But whereas he says that that very Account Pag. 30. which I give of the Trinity out of Mr. Hooker ' s Book is owned and particularly explained by his Hypothesis I must acknowledg he has indeed owned it in his Book but in the same contradicted it both in express Terms and by his Hypothesis And I add 't is impossible by his Hypothesis to explain it He contradicts it in express Terms One Substance and three Properties was Mr. Hooker's Language and whence taken I have shewn Three real substantial Beings which if it signifies not Vind. pag. 47. Pag. 83. three Substances I cannot tell what it signifies and three proper distinguishing Characters had it not been for Affectation of Novelty he might as well have said three Properties are Mr. Dean's Terms And these I take to be Contradictions For one Substance and three Substances that is three Substances and not three because only one Substance with three Properties is a Contradiction if any in the World His Hypothesis contradicts that is destroys it For his Definition or Account what we are to mean by a Person in the Holy Trinity is part of his Hypothesis But that makes the three Persons three real substantial Beings Vind. p. 47 48 49 50 c. three distinct infinite Minds three uncreated Spirits that is immaterial Substances three intelligent Beings having each Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action Now this as before made out is contradictious to the Doctrine brought by Mr. Hooker And because his Hypothesis in the very first fundamental Point of it namely the Definition he gives of a Person contradicts the former Explication of the Trinity therefore 't is impossible to explain that by his However we will take the other Part of his Hypothesis and try whether we can find therewith any more Consistency As he supposes these three uncreated Spirits to be distinct by Self-consciousness so to be one numerically one Essence or one God by mutual Consciousness But by the former Part of his Hypothesis each Person had and to use his Words knew and felt himself to have an Vnderstanding Will and Power of Action of his own Now though the Supposal of mutual Consciousness may in some measure explain how each thereby may have or be possess'd of one anothers Knowledg or Vnderstanding yet that any can have or be